He created us, after all, from clay and water. Then he overstepped his bounds. He stole fire from Zeus and gave it to us. And, boy, was he punished: chained to a rock, where an eagle pecked at his liver every day, only to have the organ regenerate every night. Think of it as an immensely painful version of Groundhog Day.

What does this Greek myth have to do with Ridley Scott’s new Alien prequel Prometheus, aside from a shared name? Quite a bit, as fans of Scott’s science-fiction masterworks will surely observe.

From the original Alien (1979) through Blade Runner (1982) and now Prometheus, Scott has dipped again and again into man’s (and woman’s) costly aspirations of discovery, with a nod toward the mysteries of creation. Fueled by the ambitions of fictional futuristic corporations and loftier goals of better understanding life on this rock we call Earth, the humans in Scott’s sci-fi have a way of pushing too far, too fast, with results that sting like a beak in humanity’s liver.

Of course, none of this was clear when Alien appeared 33 years ago. The movie’s first impressions were visceral, not philosophical: the creeping dread of a rough beast slowly prowling the freighter Nostromo’s dark corridors, and, especially, the “Oh my God I can’t watch this” jolt of watching a slimy critter burst from John Hurt’s chest.

But if the Promethean pieces weren’t pronounced, they were still there. The Nostromo crew was suckered into answering a distress call on another planet. The hidden purpose? Picking up that predatory cargo and bringing it back to Earth for further study. Leading the deception was a man-made entity, an android played by Ian Holm, designed to do that which his human colleagues lacked the coldblooded guile to pull off. The Weyland-Yutani Corp. didn’t steal fire; instead it tried to poach a lethal species from space. Prometheus, in its circuitous way, helps explain the motives.

Alien carried the ungodly marriage of man and technology over to its visuals, particularly the images of extraterrestrial tissue and goo melted into the surrounding circuits and hulls. But Scott didn’t fully exploit the idea until Blade Runner.

Here we had replicants, or “skin jobs,” lifelike cyborgs created by the Tyrell Corp. to do hard labor. But they were also created with a limited life span, and once the expiration date approached, the replicants raged against the dying of the light and meted out punishment on their techno-savvy maker. Working from Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Scott and his screenwriters delivered a haunting take on the old Frankenstein story that warned against meddling with the forces of nature.

Now we’re cutting closer to the bone. Surely you didn’t think Scott came up with these connections on his own. Fans of the classic Universal Pictures Frankenstein will remember the good doctor bellowing his immortal cry — “It’s alive!” — as he gave life to his monster. But the more direct connection to our friend on the rock comes courtesy of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, or, if you will, its subtitle: “The Modern Prometheus.” Dr. Frankenstein gives life, but his gift has treacherous consequences for everyone involved.

Shelley gave her monster the ability to speak, eloquently and at great length, on the plight of its existence. She also had a like-minded scribe in the household: Her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, published his epic poem “Prometheus Unbound” in 1820.

The poem, in turn, was inspired by Aeschylus’ play Prometheus Bound. You see where we’re going with this: The central ideas of Prometheus are as old as the myth of Prometheus. Now they get a new workout in Scott’s return to Alien territory.

Scott’s Prometheus is more overtly philosophical than Alien or Blade Runner, though it shares some of the latter’s thematic concerns: Who made us? Why can’t we live forever? And what prompts us to seek answers to questions well above our mortal pay grade?

The new movie can get a little ponderous — with that title it almost has to — but give it credit for taking the myth seriously. Scott wants us to think about his slimy aliens and their human prey in existential terms.

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About Chris Vognar

Chris has written about film, music, theater and books for The News since 1996. He attended Harvard for a year as the 2009 Arts and Culture Fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC Berkeley, where he received his B.A. in English literature. He is has taught arts journalism at SMU and film history at the University of Texas at Arlington. Chris has covered the Toronto Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Academy Awards. Follow Chris on Twitter @chrisvognar.

Education/career track: Studied literature and film at Berkeley. Sold futons for six years. Arrived at the Dallas Morning News in 1996.

I'd rather be: In school. I went to Harvard for a Nieman Fellowship from 2008-2009, and I teach arts journalism at SMU.

When I'm not watching movies I'm watching: The NBA. Go Mavs.

Why I write about movies: Because I love them. Well, the good ones anyway.

Favorite movie: Depends on the day you ask. But you can never go wrong with Chinatown.

Hometown: Berkeley, CA

Education: Chris received his B.A. in English literature from UC Berkeley.